Category: lindy hop and other dances

Last night we went to the Austrian club to see JW. My first night dancing since i’ve been back (and it’s been about a week since i last danced – feels like a couple of days, though, owing to the weirdo travel thing). The Squeeze brought his excellent digital camera and took some wonderful photos of the band. i had a play and took some nice photos of my friends. they’re a bit grainy because it was quite dark there, the shutter speed wasn’t quite quick enough (i think – i don’t really know about this stuff), i don’t use flash (because people look horrid and washed out, though The Squeeze has introduced me to the notion of fill flash. hm.) and they were a bit far away.
This is a picture of doris and corinne. aren’t they pretty? this is an edited version (i cropped for framing). i’m still learning, so be kind.
also, i’m having some troubles with mt uploading my files. so the link to the popup might be broken. check the archive for a better copy if you want to save a copy. please keep in mind that these are photos i’ve taken myself, and you should (if you’re any sort of decent person) credit me. if you want to use any of these photos in your own publications (including websites) please get my permission or at least credit me and link to my site.
ta.

Thereâ€™s something strange about being the only person in a block of apartments after spending two weeks in the constant company of at least 200 people. Especially when those 200 people are almost always in constant physical contact with each other.

The second camp â€“ Camp Savoy â€“ is over, and Iâ€™m taking an extra night in the student housing to recover before I fly out of Heathrow tomorrow night. The weather has been utterly wonderful: very warm, very sunny. This could be a university campus anywhere in Australia. Though the food marks it as singularly British. Otherwise, there are very few English accents about â€“ this being a university campus and all â€“ and Iâ€™m really quite enjoying doodling about on my own.
Could do with a bit of company, but still
how could I complain about such a long, glorious evening with such wonderful warmth and cooling breeze? And after all this sitting about on the hilly lawn under the student accommodation, reading The Guardian (which Iâ€™ve missed) and beginning to think again, Iâ€™ve a lovely clean, dry bed with sheets and no early morning missions ahead of me.

The last two weeks have been incredibly intense. Herrang was the perfect exercise in indoctrination: intensely, physically demanding days with round the clock dancing, where doing a beginners class in aerials at 12midnight (midday Herrang time) seemed perfectly logical and plain black tea was a precious commodity to be traded illicitly and only between friends. I have surely joined a cult, and am in dire need of deprogramming.

Living with constant physical exhaustion, sleep deficiency and irregular meals have taken their toll and my health has once again dropped. The Herrang bug has been hanging about in my sinuses since late last week, and pushed me into naps every afternoon. Expensive classes with world-class lindy hop egos be-damned. Thereâ€™s rest and recuperation to be done. My lungs are beginning to fill and the Horrid Cough has returned. I predict much wailing and gnashing of teeth when the plane takes off.

Flying with feet as sore and mangled and swollen as mine were last week resulted in a pain so spectacular I would have bawled like a baby if Iâ€™d not been so tired I fell immediately into a sleep that defied even take off. While the effects of constant dancing havenâ€™t quite worn off â€“ there are some disturbingly numb spots on my toes and recurring bouts of pins and needles â€“ Iâ€™m hoping these couple of days of rest will make flying a bit more comfortable. Iâ€™ve regained some higher brain function and have managed to stay awake all day, though Iâ€™ll probably find myself all awake and twitchy at about 1am, looking for some dance floor action. But for now, itâ€™s 8:34pm and Iâ€™ve not napped today. I must be getting better. Thereâ€™s also been no dancing, and Iâ€™m not sure Iâ€™m ready for that. Over two weeks of dancing every day for at least eight hours is kind of addictive. Iâ€™m in endorphin withdrawal, Iâ€™m sure. How will I cope with Melbourneâ€™s dark and horrible winter?

Pft. Itâ€™s such a lovely, warm evening, itâ€™s hard to imagine Melbourneâ€™s crap weather. For now, while Iâ€™ve borrowed from Lionel Hampton, I think Miles Davis is the only possible musical alternative for this evening.

My backpack full of clean laundry, care of Evaâ€™s washing machine and a night break between camps, is now more a mixed bag. I am down to the non-dancing underwear (where the dancing underwear seems to have largely disappeared: Iâ€™m sure Iâ€™ve lost knickers in the Herrang laundry. Despite Graceâ€™s best efforts) and once again wishing Iâ€™d brought some thai fishermanâ€™s pants with me. But whoâ€™d have thought loose, cotton nappy-inspired trousers would be the perfect garment for a dance camp in Europe? Note to self for future reference, I guess.
The wedding clothes proved just as irritating as Iâ€™d thought: sure, I could have dressed up for the blues nights at Herrang (one can never be over dressed for blues night), but then Iâ€™d not have felt as comfortable as I did. Ah well.
Iâ€™m going to have to hunt for something clean for flying in. Something I can bear to wear for 24 hours straight

Future Herrang visits: more trousers. More loose, comfy cotton trousers. More thai fisherman pants. Ten tshirts is enough. Bring bike pants to manage inevitable Chafing Issues. Never too many pairs of underwear or socks. Bring only machine-washable, quick-drying clothes. Care not for crinkles. Swimming costume an essential for shy-bies (not that I had the opportunity to see if I was shy). Sheets. Say yes to a sheet. Hat. Sarong â€“ another essential.

How will I manage Melbourneâ€™s winter weather and fashion requirements? Especially now Iâ€™m at least a size smaller than I was before I left. Goddamn this super-responsive metabolism. It adores exercise. And dancing truly is the best exercise there is.

I subsequently met the young fella from London who designed the London Lindy Exchange (LLX) Brit Hop tshirts. He was in Herrang. He was young, cute and a lovely dancer. I know itâ€™s wrong to be patronise, and I do try not to. But he was.
And it was a brit pop joke.
Eeeexcellent.

here we are lining up for breakfast. things are moving slow…. note the cheese. cheese is big with the swedes. we eat a lot of crackers as well. the food is bloody good.

and here we are eating in the tent.
the tents are important features on the herrang landscape. we eat in them, we learn in them, we practice in them. meals are my favourite thing – good food and lots of good company.

things have gotten dire. last pair of knickers. last pair of pants. all else is in the laundry, being washed. it may or may not all come back to me. then i have to get it dried. tricky in this climate. they have these big drier thingies that look like fridges, and they’re pretty good. but there’ll be that moment between getting up and walking the 10minutes across town to the driers where i’ll have nothing to wear. lucky herrang is 24hours a day.
i am so sweaty all the time, i go through clothes at a phenomenal rate. so does everyone.

herrang fashion: loose, comfortable trousers; tshirt, thongs or sandals by day, and the same with dance shoes at night. loose, comfy tshirts for men, smaller, tighter tshirts for women. the dress standards are definitely casual. except on the party nights. then people dress up like fools: check out these pictures.

this one is my favourite. that nursey there is a lovely german boy. and the wrestler is a lovely girl. ah, herrang.

but now i have a cold. everyone’s got it. and now i do too. poop.
didn’t stop me staying up til 7am dancing. the thing that’s really giving me trouble are my feet – the joints in my toes are really really hurting. i worry that i’ve done something nasty to myself… oh well.

the dancing is good. my dancing is now better than it has been in a million years. the dancers are also good – good company, good fun, good music, good dancing. it’s like being on holiday with a couple of hundred totally excellent people who love to dance and do interesting things. …which i guess is actually the situation. i’m still very tired, but now that i’m nocturnal, it’s not so much of a problem. the sun is only down for about 6 hours at night, so it’s not so hard to stay up. i’m super fit again, and have dropped so much weight i have to safety pin my pants on. last week i was doing classes, so that was 4 and a half hours of dance classes during the day, with one or two casual classes and a bit of practice as well. then hours on end of social dancing. all we do here is eat, dance, talk and muck about. and people sleep whenever and wherever they can. in the cafe between songs. in hammocks, in the gym on mattresses, on the grass between classes.
the cutest thing i’ve seen so far has been two swedish girls squashed into a hammock sidebyside, battling with a mosquito net. they were giggling and tired and hidden away under a tree. very sweet.

i am about as boring as boring gets at the moment. i’m full of goob, and trying not to panic about getting well in time to travel…
i’m flying out on the 26th (straight through to the uk… aw yeah, that’ll be excellent fun), so i’ve about 26 days to get the tubes in my head clear so i won’t explode in the plane. speaking of eustachian tubes. guess i shouldn’t have jinxed myself.

things weren’t helped by my dancing like a nut on two seperate occasions over the past week – a wednesday night at a pub, dancing like an idiot for too long, followed by talking and dancing with germ-ridden blues dancers til 6:30 in the morning; and a friday night at a bar (dancing like a complete fool, and without inhibition for about an hour).

it seems i have not only lost the few inhibitions i once had about dancing in public, but also any good sense about caring for ill bodies. it’s that crazy disco dancing. it’s led me astray.
i just don’t seem to care at all any more about what people think about me when i’m dancing. and while i’ve always loved disco dancing, i’ve not always been as prone to spasticity on the dance floor.
the next day i cringe at the memories… it seems there’s no dance move i won’t do, no limit on the amount of dance floor i’ll coopt for my own use, no unsuspecting peer i’ll not rope into dancing with me.

it was crowded, cultish and a bit scary. but i had lots of nice dances, listened to a good band, met some nice people. and took a few photos. note the discrepencies in lighting – i am still learning. but i like the blurs. that’s how it always seems – blurry – when you’re dancing.